Key Rotation (2024)

FAQs

What is the best practice for key rotation? ›

As a best practice, you should rotate API keys at least every 90 days. If you have a strong automated process for rotating keys, you could rotate much more often than that. We will get into automation later, though. Important events may require you to rotate keys as well.

We recommend that you rotate keys automatically on a regular schedule. A rotation schedule defines the frequency of rotation, and optionally the date and time when the first rotation occurs. The rotation schedule can be based on either the key's age or the number or volume of messages encrypted with a key version.

Key rotation has several benefits for data security, privacy, compliance, and recovery. Here are some of them: It enhances data security by preventing unauthorized access to encrypted data, even if a key is compromised or stolen.

Key rotation is an indispensable practice of data security that involves regularly changing cryptographic keys used for encryption and decryption of data. By enforcing a limited amount of data to be encrypted with the same key, rotating cryptographic keys reduces consequences from the same key being compromised.

This post by @mgibson refers to a number of risks associated with rotating one's encryption key, including the risk of a network failure or closing the client during the rotation. However, the Bitwarden help pages lists the only risk as being “Making changes in a session with a “stale” encryption key”.

Some security regulations require periodic, automatic key rotation. Automatic key rotation at a defined period, such as every 90 days, increases security with minimal administrative complexity.

Overview. Secret key rotation is a somewhat similar process to RPC by which the encryption key, used for securing secret data, is changed and that secret data is re-encrypted.

This policy validates that AWS IAM account access keys are rotated every 90 days. Regularly rotating access keys is considered security best practice as it reduces the amount of time a compromised key can be used to access an account.

Due to the nature of the AES-256-GCM encryption used, keys should be rotated before approximately 2³² encryptions have been performed, following the guidelines of NIST publication 800-38D. As of Vault 1.7, Vault will automatically rotate the backend encryption key prior to reaching 2³² encryption operations by default.

You can use API key rotation to reset a compromised or inadvertently exposed API key without losing the application's analytics. You can create a new API key and delete the compromised one in a few steps from the Developer Dashboard: Select the app where you would like to create a key or replace a compromised key.

Why rotate signing keys? ›

You can manually rotate a signing key periodically to change the JSON web key (JWK) key used by applications and APIs to validate tokens. If your application or API does not allow for this key change, and it attempts to use an expired signing key to verify a token, the authentication request will fail.

Schematics of the three main types of rotational motion: (a) libration, (b) spinning, and (c) orbiting. (d) Librational motion and orientation of a disk can be detected from the scattered-light profile.

While key rotation ensures that a key is transferred from its active state to a retired state, rekeying ensures that a key is transferred from its retired state to being destroyed.

The frequency of API key rotation may vary based on factors such as the level of security required, industry best practices, and organizational policies. Typically, API keys are rotated at regular intervals, such a quarterly or annually, depending on the specific requirements and risk tolerance in your company.